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Wrong. Wrong.
“I want to do the right thing,” he murmured. “Be there for you and… and the baby.”
Somewhere inside my brain, I registered his words. Their brokenness. Their pain. But nothing compared to the brokenness inside me.
“I don’t want you here,” I snapped. “Go home.”
Now, I tell him, “I read your letters. My dad finally gave them to me.”
He’s quiet for a beat, processing. Then he winces. “I kinda wish he’d burned them.”
I squeeze his fingers, meeting his searching gaze. “I don’t. They made me realize something important—that even when we were apart, we were together. All those years you felt far away, you were still right next to me. If that makes sense.”
He lifts our hands and kisses my knuckles. “It does. And it’s true.”
I shift a little closer to him and lower my head to his shoulder. “Do you believe everything happens for a reason?”
Lucas shrugs. “We can’t ever know for sure. But I like to think that life tries to balance itself out.”
“Like karma?”
“Maybe. All I know is that this is where I’m supposed to be. I’m not exactly proud of how long it took to get here, but I can’t begrudge the journey. It wasn’t our time back then.”
“Mmm. It’s our time now, huh?”
“Sure is. More specifically, it’s time to christen Camp Wild Lake’s new dock.”
A laugh bursts out of me. Lifting my head, I shake it vehemently. “No way. Anyone could show up. The fishermen could come back. I’m not an exhibitionist, Adler.”
His arm snakes around my side, warm palm flattening over my stomach. Awareness skates down my spine, lighting up my nerve endings, as blue eyes full of heat and tenderness roam my face.
God, I love him so damn much.
Lowering his mouth to mine, he whispers, “You have thirty seconds to find a private spot, then, because when I find you, I’m taking you.”
I waste five seconds sputtering, until the look in his eyes shifts from mischievous to downright carnal.
Then I jump to my feet and run.
Twenty-five seconds is not long at all.
Definitely not long enough for me to reach one of the cabins or the Art Barn. When I realize that, I change course and sprint north toward the old caretaker’s house. I’m not going to make it, but at least the terrain is more heavily forested and therefore more private.
I don’t even make it as far as I think I will, mainly because running while trying not to hysterically laugh is a challenge I’m not ready for. Plus: bare feet and pinecones.
He catches me—tackles me, really—when I’m about fifteen yards from the lake house. I don’t fall, though. He spins me and lifts me up, slowing our momentum until my back comes to rest gently against a tree trunk.
I keep laughing until he kisses the ability away. Until the sensation of his arms around me, of his warm chest against mine, of him pressing hard and hot between my legs blots everything else out.
Except one thing.
“Lucas?”
He nips my earlobe. Kisses my neck. “Yes, my love?”
Warmth fizzes through me, bright and golden. No more darkness.
“Reverse your vasectomy.”
